


our love is here to stay

by redstaronmyshoulder (CaptainAmelia22)



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Awkward Flirting, M/M, Musical References, Musicals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-04
Updated: 2014-07-04
Packaged: 2018-02-07 09:23:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1893780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainAmelia22/pseuds/redstaronmyshoulder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It isn't until they audition as a team for the high school musical that the two of them finally understand just how much the other means to them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	our love is here to stay

_ROGERS FURY’S DOING AN AMERICAN IN PARIS THIS YEAR.  YOU ARE AUDITIONING WITH ME._

_Hey-Nat and I are coming over.  Tell ur mom to make pizza._

_Steve-I’m in your basement.  Your mom’s making pizza._

**

“You do realize Fury’s going to want you to play Jerry Mulligan, right?”

Steve Rogers glanced up and frowned in his best friend’s direction, his pencil stilling mid-stroke on his sketchpad.  “What makes you say that Bucky?” he asked, genuine confusion in his light blue eyes.  

Bucky Barnes snorted and gestured towards the ancient television they were gathered in front of and Steve turned in time to see Gene Kelly-in brilliant Technicolor-go sweeping by, with Leslie Caron poised elegantly in his arm.  

“I can’t dance, though,” he muttered but before he could continue or Bucky could protest, the basement door of the Rogers’ residence was thrown open and a familiar husky voice said, “We can change that, Rogers.”  

Natasha Romanoff appeared, just as the music coming from the film fanfared, on the bottom step of the basement stairs-Sam Wilson at her back-and Steve froze at the shark-like grin curling her bright red lips.  

“Well Rogers?” she purred, green eyes sparkling as she held up a blue flier announcing audition times for Lehigh High School’s spring musical, An American in Paris; his eyes never left the flier, even as she curled elegantly beside him on the basement floor and he jumped the moment she leaned into his ear to whisper, “Want to learn some moves to go with that sketchpad of yours?”  

Bucky and Sam grinned at him from the couch and as Gene Kelly swept Leslie Caron into his arms and passionately kissed her in the middle of a Technicolored Paris, Steve Rogers found himself saying the impossible.  

“Sure Nat-I’d like to learn how to dance.”  He glanced at the two boys he considered his closest friends, as they started snickering outright, and leveled a finger at first one and then the other.  “But you two are auditioning too,” he said, and neither boy missed the direct order in his voice.  He grinned, blue eyes sparkling as he watched them react to his words.  “I’m not the only one here who has a secret skill.”  

Bucky’s eyes widened as Sam groaned and flopped dramatically to the basement floor, his broad shoulders falling directly in Natasha’s lap.  “Steve,” he said slowly, all humor gone from voice and eyes.  “You’re not serious?”

Steve simply grinned and turned back to the TV screen and the scratchy VHS recording of the show they were going to be auditioning for in the morning.  “‘Course I am,” he muttered as he turned back to the pad in his lap and the bit of charcoal he’d found lying in the bottom of his bookbag.  “You owe me.”  

Bucky simply paled and tried to avoid the other two’s gazes.

“Fuck.”  

**

He hadn’t touched a piano in five years-he wasn’t even sure how Steve remembered him being able to play the piano.  

That night-after they’d watched An American in Paris one last time and gorged themselves on Mrs. Rogers homemade alfredo and spinach pizza (she was the only parent who ever remembered Natasha being a vegetarian-even her own parent’s forgot most nights)-he’d gone home and sat at the old upright his dad had brought home from a garage sale right after his parents had gotten married.

He hadn’t touched it in five years-not since his mom had passed.  

He flipped the cover open-wincing slightly at the sound of dusty hinges groaning-and curled his fingers over the yellowed ivory keys.  

He wasn’t even sure what he wanted to play-if he could even remember how to play-but as he sat for a moment in his silent, empty house, he found himself thinking of Steve and the way he had looked that afternoon, down there in his basement.  

He found himself humming that one song from the show-the love song everyone seemed to know from that film-and before he knew it, his fingers were stroking the keys like they were skin and his eyes were full of nothing but…

Nothing but Steve.  

The sound of the piano’s lid slamming closed echoed in his empty house and as dawn crept over the horizon, heralding his dad’s return from the graveyard shift at the factory, his fingers burned as if it really had been skin he’d been touching as he played.

It had been five years since he’d touched a piano.  

And then he played it again, that afternoon, his eyes closed as he tried to ignore Steve standing in the stage’s wings, his jaw agape.  

Bucky Barnes hoped no one took him seriously…

**

“I forgot what it was like, watching you play.”  

Bucky turned at the sound of Steve’s voice behind him and swallowed nervously.  “I wasn’t that great Rogers,” he snapped, his eyes resting on everything but Steve.  

They were on the darkened stage of the auditorium-alone since the auditions had wrapped nearly an hour before-and both boys found themselves reflecting on just why they’d come here, when they should have been heading home.  

Steve cleared his throat and fiddled with the ridges of his sketchpad, words failing him; he really had forgotten what it was like watching Bucky play-it had been so long since he’d seen those familiar fingers curling so perfectly over the keys of the keyboard.  He found his own itching-itching to draw them.  

He tried to ignore that itch.  

That was a dangerous itch.

“Natasha-erm,” he stammered as he struggled to find the right words to say to his best friend, now that they were truly alone after such a strange experience.  Bucky simply leaned against the battered old grand piano he’d laid his soul upon just an hour before and scuffed the toe of his black Converse over the scarred flooring of the stage.  

His fingers clenched tightly, the tendons in his arms sticking out as he tensed and his hair tumbled over his forehead, shielding his eyes from the other boy’s gaze.  

Steve took a deep breath and tried again, “Natasha and I are going to do a number together for the dance audition tomorrow and erm…”

Bucky still wouldn’t look at him.  

Steve still didn’t know how he felt about watching his best friend play the piano so beautifully.   

Neither boy didn’t know how to handle what stood between them.  

Finally, after the silence between them had stretched to the point of breaking, Steve blurted, “Would you want to play for our audition tomorrow, Bucky?  It could be a triple audition of sorts?”

Bucky’s eyes shot up to meet his and he swallowed heavily as his fingers dug crescents into his palms.  

“P-play for you?” he stammered, shocked.  “W-why?”

Steve simply grinned and ran his fingers through his hair-anything to keep the itch at bay.  “Because I want you to, Buck.  Because you’re...you’re my best friend.  And because…”

He couldn’t finish the last part and as he rushed from the stage, that damnable itch in his fingers and the beautiful notes of a beautiful song swirling in his mind, he hoped Bucky wouldn’t think too much on just what he hadn’t said.

**

_Ur playing at our audition, right James?_

_Yo, Barnes!  It’s Sam-you ok brother?  You weren’t in Hill’s class 2day._

_Bucky, call me.  Please._

_**_

His fingers were trembling as he curled them loosely over the keys of the theatre department’s old grand piano; the notes printed on the loose paper placed before him swirled sickeningly but he didn’t run away.

Steve and Natasha’s eyes were wide as they caught sight of him, placed squarely in the middle of the stage like they’d rehearsed, but they didn’t say anything.  Fury and Hill sat in the main part of the auditorium-their faces lit by the lamp placed before them-but the three student’s paid them no mind either.  

Bucky took a deep breath and finally met his friend’s gazes.  

“Ready?” he mouthed in Natasha’s direction and he couldn’t help smiling at the fierce grin that curled her lips.  

He didn’t look at Steve.  

Then, as one they took up their positions and as his fingers began to press gently into the keys of the piano, the other two began to dance.

It was James Barnes’ turn to be amazed.  

Somehow he managed to keep his eyes on the sheet music spread before him, but as Steve and Natasha moved smoothly through a set of choreography she had created in Steve’s basement the night before, his jaw gaped just slightly and his eyes sparkled with something rather like tears.

Every now and then, in the five minutes of bliss all three created up there on the dimly lit stage of Lehigh’s auditorium, his eyes would meet Steve’s and his fingers would begin to itch once more.

It was becoming very hard to resist that itch.

**

_Break a leg tonight Bucky.  You’re going to be amazing._

_THIS IS IT BOYS.  OPENING NIGHT.  YOU BETTER NOT FUCK UP OR I’LL BREAK ALL OF YOUR LEGS FOR YOU._

_does anyone else think it’s ironic that a black kid is playing the suavest motherfucker in paris because i’m finding it kind of ironic.  OPENING NIGHT!_

_Bucky...can we talk after the show?_

_**_

“Bucky.”

Opening night.  His stomach was a mass of knots and as he toyed with his fake cigarettes and the tea cup the stage manager always made sure was plastic, he gnawed worriedly at his bottom lip.  Sweat beaded on his forehead, making the makeup caked on his face streak, but he barely noticed.

Every nerve in his body sang and for the first time in months since he’d gotten the part of Adam, the struggling concert pianist, he found himself wondering if maybe he’d made a colossal mistake.  

“Bucky.”  

Steve’s voice, gentle and something a bit more, came to him out of the shadows of the wings and he jumped.  

“Hey.”  

Steve grinned as he drifted a bit closer, the white cap he wore as Jerry Mulligan for most of the play, twisting in his fingers.  “Hi,” he said lamely, his smile faltering as the opening strains of the orchestra began to stream from the pit.  “Um…”

Bucky’s eyes locked on his and as the two boys gazed at each other, memories of the past few months washing over them and for the first time he let that itch in his fingers manifest.  

“Steve, look,” he began, but before he could even say anything, Steve was stepping up towards him and resting his hand gently against the back of his skull.

The moment their lips touched, just as the gentle chords of Our Love is Here to Stay began to weave through the introductory instrumentals, Bucky Barnes let his nerves take over.  

“Break a leg,” he whispered against Steve’s lips, his fingers pressing into his best friend’s hips.

Neither boy mentioned how right this felt.

How...Technicolored.  

**

_Good show boys.  Oh and the musical was great._

_Shut up Natasha._

 

 


End file.
